The End of Patience
by Vaughn's Jenn
Summary: "You try to control what you do. How you feel. But when that perfect oppurtunity comes along and you have no one to consult, no one to ask for advice, and the decision is there in front of you and receding fast, you have to go with your gut instinct." CM


**The End of Patience**

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_In response to the April CM challenge._

_Requirements: _

_(1) __Newton__'s 3rd Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction._

_(2) __Truth Serum_

_(3) __A Dark Alley_

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_"You try to stay in control of what you do. How you feel. But when that perfect opportunity comes and whacks you over the head, you have to let loose and go with your gut instinct."_

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_~Prologue~_

It is the morning of August second. 

The year of 2003.

The temperature outside is 85 degrees Fahrenheit and, despite of the air conditioning and the fact that the thermometer reads that it is 72 degrees in the room where Sydney Bristow is sitting, it feels much hotter. 

She sits in front of two men in almost identical black suits. Her face is calm. Composed. She does not appear to be agitated, doesn't look as if there is anything bothering her. Her voice is steady and the words streaming out of her mouth are calm and resonating with reason. Even as they strive to explain her unreasonable actions.

This here is a perfect example of Isaac Newton's Third Law.  

Written in his major work _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_, also known as _Principia, which was written from 1684 to 1686, Isaac Newton defined the basic concepts of mechanics by elaborating on the three laws of motion. _

_One_: Every object continues in a state of rest or in a straight line unless deflected by another force.

_Two_: The rate of change on motion of an object is proportional to the force acting on it.

_Three_: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Mr. Arvin Sloane, she states, has brought this down on himself. If he had not turned her entire life into a complete lie, an intricate web of false fronts and outright deception, this fate would not have befallen him. 

His action? Killing her fiancé Daniel Hecht exactly eighteen months ago and thereby leading her to find out the truth that has changed her entire life. Or at least this is what she says his action is. There are those that feel it must have been something more specific, something more personal. 

Her reaction?

This is the story of her reaction.

~_End Prologue~_

_~Intermediary~_

"What could have possessed you to do such a thing, Sydney?" Agent Michael Vaughn is walking at an abnormally quick pace, one that has been altered in order to keep up with the racing woman at his side. She does not _appear to be moving at the speed she is but appearances have always been deceiving._

He receives no reply from her, only the slight twitch of the tense facial muscles that he longs so much to touch. He contemplates pleading with her to let him understand so that he can somehow help her. For some reason she is closed off to him. But they have already reached the heavy double doors where two men are waiting to take her statement. It hurts him that she cannot turn to him for this, during this time. He wants to be her anchor through all things.

She opens the door and, before walking in, turns back to Michael and looks at him, sending a message with her gaze that he does not completely understand before she turns and strides back into the room. Though it is as complex as everything about her life, he is somehow reassured by this gaze, it has given him the hope that he has been longing for. 

She does not give them time to say their formalities to her; she is professional and certainly all business. She pulls out her chair and straightens the jacket that hangs nicely on her frame and begins to speak as soon as she sits. 

"You try to control what you do. How you feel. But when that perfect opportunity comes along, and you have no one to consult, no one to ask for advice, and the decision is there in front of you and receding fast, you have to go with your gut instinct. That's what I did."

She knows what she is saying, she delivers all the points that have been running through her mind in a perfect, fast-paced speech so that the only thing the men can do is write down what she is saying as fast as they can. They don't need to ask questions of her. She is supplying all the answers of her own free will.

~_End Intermediary~_

_~Explanation~ back into past tense_

The room was not quite dark yet gave the impression of being so despite the muted light that streamed in through the half-shaded window. Sydney sat in the chair placed before the desk. The chair behind the desk was empty; she was waiting.

She closed her eyes momentarily, as if closing her eyes would still her world even if only for a moment; as if with that one elongated blink, she could be normal and lead a normal life… even if it was a life led in the fleeting darkness behind her eyelids.

But she was snapped out of her reverie by the soft click and the smooth sound of the door opening. And then he came in; he in his perfectly ironed suit and crinkly smile that didn't quite reach his eyes even though he liked to think that it did. 

"Sydney. I'm glad you came."

"You did say that it was matter of importance," her tone was ever-so-slightly clipped with an icy professionalism that one could call reverence when one wasn't otherwise defining it as hatred.

"Yes. I did. And it is, I wasn't lying."

"I didn't assume that you were."

There was a slightly awkward pause before Sloane's oily voice slid back into its pattern. "Yes well, I wanted to see you first before I provided this information to the rest of SD-6 at the meeting tomorrow. You see, this is a very sensitive matter."

Sydney's interest perked a little bit at his words, automatically thinking of what kind of importance this information would have and how she could possibly use it to help the CIA. "I'm honored that you trust me enough to give me this information."

Sloane nodded before coming in front of his desk and leaning against his desk with an informality and nonchalant air that did not match the expression glinting under the surface of his eyes. "You know that I consider you as a daughter Sydney."

Restraining her slight shudder, she managed to pull on a humble look across her face. "I know. But I feel honored just the same." She looked up just in time to see a curious look fling across his face and disappear once more as he felt her eyes upon him.

"There is a new enemy and he is quite extraordinary. He hasn't made a big name for himself, is not the head of any group yet he seems to be affiliated with them all. He is more like the brains behind the brains if you will, he seems to be kind of a freelance _thinker if that even makes sense."_

Sydney's brow furrowed at the words. A person of this notoriety or of this much power should not have been completely absent from the CIA's own radar. Sloane reached behind him to grab an envelope that had been lying on his desk and then turned back around, slowly unclipped the metal prongs holding the opening sections closed.

And then he took out a photo, the actual picture facing him though she was able to identify what it was by the glossy back. And then he turned it around for her to see.

A silent, secret thrill of dread and fear ran through her as her gaze landed on the all-too familiar face; the beautiful eyes and cheeks… the straight line of a mouth that begged for a reason to smile.

"His name is Michael Vaughn. He needs to be exterminated."

Her mind seemed to fill with sudden jumbled up thoughts that she was unable to separate for the life of her, wasn't even sure or even completely aware of what her thoughts even were anymore. How was she supposed to react?

But she couldn't refuse this job… Sloane would have gotten somebody else to do this instead. And then it would've worked. For this _was a trap. His trap. Meant for her and no one else… she was the pinpoint and target for these blatant lies. And she was falling._

"You're hesitating Sydney," his voice wove its way into her ears and into her mind with its lilting rhythm. And that was when she heard it. That low meaning that lay just beneath the surface of his words. The sound, or the feeling, of anticipation… of waiting… of watching the prey. 

He knew.

This game was about to begin.

"I apologize," she said softly, shaking her head and forcing herself to be level, "it's just that I've never had to actually kill someone on any of my missions and I suppose that being faced with the image of the person… just made him too real for me."

His laugh was soft and completely understanding. She hated him for it. "Sydney, your professionalism and maturity are always so way beyond your years that I often forget that you are still so young; please forgive me for being so blunt. But it _did have to be said."_

"I understand. Where and how will this be done?"

"At 8:30 tonight, Mr. Vaughn will be arranging a meeting with one of the top agents from the Yugoslavian underground agency. We have tracked that agent for about 3 months and, from what we can deduce, he is selling Mr. Vaughn several essential pieces, the missing pieces, of Rambaldi's puzzle. At the moment, it is believed that Mr. Vaughn is working freelance for Brazil and merely using the United States as a middle interception point."

Her heart seemed to quiver.

"There is a restaurant downtown in Little Italy that has been constructed specifically for the use of these secret meetings. On the side of the building, there is a long alleyway that heads towards the next street over. When he comes out the side door, I need you to extract whatever is on his person, retrieve the necessary information, and then dispose of him."

The worst part of this was the fact that his words were so inextricably wound up in the truth. For there was, to Sydney's knowledge, a certain restaurant in Little Italy that had indeed been constructed in the 80s for these meetings. 

But it had been taken down soon after it had been discovered and was now a respectable restaurant… a beautiful restaurant… a restaurant that Vaughn had wanted to take her to. Tonight. At eight o'clock.

And suddenly the eerily out of place name seemed to fit in with the utmost perfection as she felt her entire world, her entire existence, come crashing out of place. La Pathetique.

Named after Beethoven's symphony… now a description of her life.

It was sick the way he was playing with her, the way he dangled the bait in front of her face and waited to see her reaction; the way he didn't let on that he knew, which in turn forced her to play in this game too. Arvin Sloane's chess game of life. And Sydney was merely a pawn, slowly being crowded in by all the other players. 

No escape.

"What information does he have to give?" The question sounded stupid to her ears but she felt as if the silence in the room had to be extinguished. 

"Why Sydney, I would think that you of all people would have had the _understanding of what this information could do to help build a stronger foundation for all the SD-units."_

"If he is as much of a thinker as you say he is, he will not give you the answers that you are looking for."

"And that is yet another problem that I have anticipated. This is a mission where you do not have to think, Sydney. You merely have to _do_." He stood up, walking to the other side of his desk and unlocking the bottom drawer. Bringing out a metal suitcase, he sat down behind his desk and opened it, pulling out a small vial that looked as if it was-

"Truth serum."

Sydney looked up at him, using all of her strength to refrain from allowing the utter shock and horror from entering her eyes. "Arvin, you have to know the effects that sodium pentothal can have on the human body," her words were measured though she was unable to block out the underlying urgency of her words. 

"What does it matter what happens to him?" Sloane's voice took on an inquisitive tone, his eyes, a probing stare. He will be terminated once he has given up his information."

Sydney felt herself automatically bringing the mental gates behind her eyes crashing down, cutting off all emotion.

In her mind she saw everything as it happened, saw Vaughn waiting at the table, fingers lightly drumming on the tablecloth, looking at his watch every few minutes not out of irritation but out of worry. Worry for her.

After twenty minutes, he would probably call her cell phone which she would be obligated not to answer, couldn't allow herself to answer, and he would be worried about her absence and forget about the night he had planned. He would probably rush out of the door prepared to come to her rescue and then there she would be, waiting. 

At first he would be relieved, happy, perhaps confused about her attire and her attitude. And then she would have to turn him around so that he couldn't look at her, so that she wouldn't have to see his eyes fastening in on hers in pleading and questions. 

She would have to stand over him as his body writhed on the hard asphalt of the alley, drowning in the stench of dumpsters and sweat. And if she were to kill him... if she had to kill him, she would have to kill herself too. She couldn't have blood on her hands. Not his.

She looked back up at him, finally catching the calculating gaze of his eyes on her face. Knowing now for certain that he also knew, that he had been waiting for her to walk herself into a trap.

Her voice was level as she spoke to him. "What are you doing?"

His smile seemed to be enough of an answer as he walked back towards her, turning momentarily to lock the door.

The soft click jarred her, filled her with a fright that she wasn't sure to interpret. 

"Sydney, despite your incredible betrayal to me, I _do_ care for you. There is no surveillance in this room. I need to know some answers." His voice carried a menace, a bitterness that Sydney did not care to test, did not want to see unleashed. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." She felt her fingers clenching the smooth wood of the armrests and released them before Sloane could see the tight whiteness spreading from her knuckles.

"I have respect for you Sydney; you have been a remarkable agent and an invaluable asset. I am in awe at how long you have managed to keep your status a secret... all the tests you passed, the lie detectors you faked your way through... the botched missions. I am disbelieving that I have been kept in the dark for so long."

The next things to clench were her teeth. Gritting them, she racked her brain, begging for it to come up with something for her to say, something so that she would not have to sit here and merely listen with nothing to use as a denial or response. But the only thing that her mind was able to conjure was the memory of Sloane's own betrayal to her.

_Her eyes took in the state of the room with confusion; though by the facts it should have been fairly simple to deduce what had occurred, she was unable to allow the possibility to sink into her mind. Her footsteps were slow as they crept into the living room, eyes wide with this place that she had called home._

_"Danny?" She begged for an answer though she was unsure as to whom she was begging. She strained her ears, allowing herself the semi-delusion of his voice calling out feebly from the other room. But it did not come and the utter silence broken only by her steady footfalls chilled her until she could barely keep from crying._

_The tears stung her eyes as she took in the state of the bedroom, their bedroom, with its rumpled sheets and overturned dressers. The bedside lamp had fallen over onto the floor and, still burning, sent a cascade of light into the bathroom. _

_Like a zombie, she followed it, already dreading in her heart what she might find. _

_Blood.___

_Blood was everywhere. Splatters of it covered the walls and the curtain, double__d themselves in the mirror. She caught sight of her__self in it, watching as the disheveled face looking back at her seemed to tremble with unfallen tears. _

_And then she saw the hand hanging limply from the side of the bathtub. Choking back a sob, she knelt in front of it, eyes fixated on every little crease in each finger, tracing the shape of them with her eyes, quaking as her gaze moved upwards towards the bloody face that looked towards nothing and everything. _

_She was drenched in blood as her mouth opened in a noiseless scream._

This was the moment; as new feelings washed over her she only knew the feelings she had harbored that night, only felt the sting of Arvin Sloane's own betrayal against her life. Only was aware of the fact that the office was locked and the surveillance was shut down. 

They were the only two in the room and three lives were on the line. The opportunity was here; she could see the smug challenge in his eyes and knew only one thing.

She couldn't give up Vaughn... Not Michael. Not this man who had given himself up to her, who had become everything she needed him to be in order to fill the void in her life.

Not even to protect herself, which was already impossible, could she stand over him unable to apologize as she watched another loved one die from her hand. 

Not again.

Not him.

_"Michael, the first time you touched me, the first time I thought I wanted you to touch me, every nerve in my body was screaming Danny's name. But I know now that you aren't taking his place, that you aren't the new 'Danny'. You are Michael Vaughn and I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to figure that out." She smiled nervously, looking down at her clasped hands as she spoke._

_His warm and comfortingly callused hands landed on her shoulders, rubbing them in slow circles in a massage. She felt his face moving closer to her, his mouth coming up behind her ear, the hot breath washing over it as she heard his words. "I would be happy to be the new 'Danny' if that was the only way to be the man in your life __Sydney__. Even being a stand in is worth is just to be with you."_

_She shook her head as she felt his lips descend on her neck, needing to clarify her statements between her sudden heavier breathing. "You're not a stand-in Vaughn. And you are never allowed to say that again... if you don't know what you mean to me-"_

_He placed his fingers across her lips silencing her. "I do __Sydney__."_

_She shook her face free from his grasp, turning to face him. "Michael, listen to me. I'm trying to thank you for being everything I could ever want or need from a person. I'm trying to thank you for loving me and I'm doing my best to love you back. But you keep interrupting me from doing the thing that is most important," She placed a hand on either cheek, eyes brimming again as she smiled softly, "I'm trying to tell you that you are so much more than a mere "stand-in", that you have never really been stand in__… and most of all that I'm in love with you."_

_His physical features did not change except for the slight curve of his lips that __lit his features yet his entire physicality seemed to change. He laughed, hugging her to him, stroking her hair with his fingers. "Do you know how long I've wanted to hear you say that?"_

_"I love you."_

There was only one option.

And she had to take it. She wasn't willing to risk Michael, certainly wasn't willing to risk her own life in Arvin Sloane's hands.

Standing up slowly, there was a new steely-glint in her eye as she spoke each word solidly. "Arvin Sloane, I am a double-agent for the CIA."

And then she struck.

~_ End Explanation~ end past tense_

_::Aftermath::_

The pictures are sliding across the slick surface of the table, trapped in their manila folder until she stops them with the flick of her finger.

Opening it gingerly, Sydney Bristow is already preparing herself for the sight she is about to see. Now is the time that she must come to face the aftermath of her craziness. The product of her seeming implosion. 

The mangled body of Arvin Sloane is forever captured in that shot, lying as it is on the cold steel table at the morgue. Sydney can see the hole where the needle was jabbed… she can still see clearly in her mind the way that the body lay there writhing as she unleashed her wrath. The thing that most frightens her is how, even in death, there still seems to be a smug smile shadowing his face.

_All's fair in love and war_ does not seem to be just a saying anymore. Even now as she still feels the remnants of crazy anger coursing through her system, she needs to close her eyes in order to stop herself from seeing her utter lack of control shamefully on display to the world. 

Distantly she can hear the voices of the men. They are speaking of how she has ruined years of meticulous work. They are telling her the hassles they must now face now that a new director will come into place, one that does not have a circle of trust that the Bristows have access to.

The men also seem to have forgotten for the moment that Arvin Sloane had found out the truth.

Slowly her eyes open and she speaks again, softly. "What would you have me do?"

Without waiting for an answer, she stands up and walks out of the door.

She is already planning on how she will enter her home and walk straight into the bathroom to wash the blood off her skin. It scares her that a part of her tells her that this vengeance feels good.

The clock states that it is now exactly 4:37 in the afternoon. 

The birthday of a new beginning.

_~Fin~_


End file.
